The present invention pertains to garments that incorporate devices and mechanisms for determining changes with time of garment properties including construction materials properties and presence of acquired external substances. Specific applications regard testing for the presence of toxic and otherwise deleterious chemicals acquired through use of a garment.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/770,129 to Coats (Coats) discloses incorporating multiple test coupons in the construction of a personal ballistic protection device. Each of the test coupons is retained with the protection device during its use until each coupon is removed for test purposes. Each test coupon has a construction identical to the protective portions of the protective device and is easily removable and configured to allow for destructive testing. Sufficient coupons are provided with the ballistic protection device to allow for periodic testing over a predetermined useful life of the ballistic protection device. The ballistic protection device may be a garment such as a vest. The present patent claims priority from the copending patent application of Coats and applies the same novel concepts to other applications and uses.
The Coats invention particularly addresses garment construction materials and material properties in the context of devices and garments used for protection from ballistic weapons. However, the underlying principles and methods are equally useful in the context of other environmental exposure and time-dependent properties and characteristics of garments.
It has been established that fire emergency workers including firefighters and emergency rescue workers and hazardous materials response workers may have an increased insistence of cancer and other health problems as a result of exposure to fire event related environmental toxic chemicals. Potential known carcinogens posing exposure risks to fire emergency workers include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, asbestos and formaldehyde.
It is also believed that garments worn by fire emergency workers and other personal that work in environments containing toxic and otherwise harmful air-borne chemicals may absorb these chemicals through natural incidental exposure. A worker's exposure time to these chemicals may be substantially increased by a worker's time of exposure to their own garments. Exposure times may be many times that of the fire events duration.
Because, in this context, chemical content testing of garments by conventional means requires destruction of the garments, testing is often not carried out in a useful manner. Due to the high cost of fire emergency garments, such as so called “turnout” gear, and the high cost of cleaning such garments resulting in inadequate cleaning, workers are often at a high risk of exposure from contaminated garments. What is needed is a method of carrying out chemical testing of garments without destruction of the garment.